Haifa University students protest against 'racist' conference on demography
From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material)
David Ratner | Haaretz | 17 May 2005
Several dozen Jewish and Arab students protested Tuesday morning at Haifa University against an academic conference titled “The Demographic Problem and Israel’s Demographic Policies” that they described as racist.
The students, prevented by campus security personnel from entering the auditorium where the conference was being held, sat down outside and refused to be evacuated.
Conference participants are slated to discuss the forecasts that Arabs will constitute the majority of Israel’s population with several decades.
The student protestors maintain the conference is racist and anti-Arab. They attempted to distributed to conference participants certificates reading “licensed racist” and “the bearer of this certificate completed with honors an advanced course in racism at Haifa University.”
Conference participants include demographic experts Professor Sergio della Pergola of Hebrew University in Jerusalem and Professor Arnon Sofer of Haifa University.